Recommendation 27

The airport industry commissioned its own research into the costs and benefits of travel restrictions which found that, had there been no travel restrictions in place during November and December 2021, the peak in omicron cases would have occurred only seven days earlier and would have been 8 per cent higher.47 DfT told us that it had worked closely with the company undertaking the analysis and acknowledged that this research included “very good” modelling of the situation. In its letter to us after our evidence session, DfT further explained that, although the modelling did consider the potential impacts from variants of concern, it was not able to look at the full range of factors posing risks from such variants entering the UK.48 44 Q 66; C&AG’s Report paras 18, 3.22 45 C&AG’s Report para 11 46 Qq 62–65 47 Q69, MCP0001, Manchester-Airports-Group, 2022; MCP003, Heathrow, 2022 48 Q 69; Letter from Gareth Davies CB, Second Permanent Secretary DfT to Meg Hillier MP, Chair, Public Accounts Committee , 6 June 2022 Managing cross-border travel during the COVID-19 pandemic 19 Improving the way government responds to crises